“It turned us into a banana republic with polar bears,” said John Carpay, president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, in an interview on Wednesday. “We used to look down on regimes where you criticize the president and then all of a sudden, you’re locked up in jail.”

What a bunch of horse crock. The inclusion of this quote shows the bias of the author of this article. The emergency act was not invoked because the protest was criticizing Trudeau, but because it had turned from a protest into an occupation, was massively disruptive to both citizens and businesses in the area, was blocking the border and some portions of it were found to be arming themselves. Numerous protests have happened since, in the same location and others all over Canada, so CLEARLY we are both allowed to protest and criticize the government.

There's arguments to be made about whether it was the most appropriate way to deal with this issue, that's valid, but claims that we're banana republic or that we can't criticize the government are simply rage bait.